Biometric authentication has become a valuable tool. This is because of the comprehensive availability of suitable scanning devices, e.g. in form of smart phones providing scanning functionality, and also because of improved network connectivity. Existing hardware, biometric authentication methods can be implemented in many situations, such as authentication, identification and also authorization processes. In addition, partially because of the same reasons, electronic documents are more and more substituting conventional paper documents. This is in the field of communication, e.g. emails and documents send via email, but also many processes conventionally making use of paper documents are transferred to electronic documents, e.g. acknowledgements of receipt of mail or email deliveries or electronic files used in modern offices.
While the protection of electronic documents as such, e.g. pdf-protection settings or (server side) email protection settings are highly evolved and assist to increase security in the world of electronic documents and communication, the possibilities for electronic signing are rather limited. In the context of conventional mail delivery, the signature of the recipient is prompted on an electronic device. Modern email settings allow to request an acknowledgement of receipt from the recipient. However, both examples do not include any (automatic) authentication functionality and the identity of the recipient has to be verified manually. Furthermore, even if the document has been delivered correctly, there is no indication whether the recipient has read the document.
Similar problems arise in the context of the acknowledgement of the content of electronic documents. Electronic documents, such as e.g. contracts (e.g. software license agreements) require approval (“signing”) by the user. This is often implemented as a klick-box at the end of the electronic document, where the user confirms that he has read the document and that he agrees with its content. However, due to the length of these contracts, the requested confirmation is often given, even though the document has not been read. This may result in further problems. For example, if a contract contains an unusual clause, the contract may be invalid, as the user could argue that this was unexpected—even though he has not read the entire document but just signed it at the end of the document.
Accordingly, there is a need to enhance the possibilities of electronic signing of electronic document in order overcome the limitations, e.g. the limitation with respect to recipient authentication and with respect to content acknowledgement.